Email attachment limits you will run into
- Gmail: up to 25 MB of attachments per message. Anything bigger is offered as a Google Drive link instead.
- Outlook.com: about 20 MB; larger files are offered as a OneDrive link.
- Yahoo Mail and others: commonly around 25 MB.
- Work and school email: set by your IT department; 10 MB to 25 MB is common. The recipient's server has a limit too — a message can leave your outbox and still bounce on the other side.
Because attachments are encoded as text while they travel, the size on the wire is larger than the file on your disk. That is why this page starts at 18 MB instead of 25 MB: it fits Outlook, fits Gmail with room to spare, and passes most corporate gateways.
Why compress instead of sharing a link?
Gmail and Outlook will happily upload large files to Google Drive or OneDrive and send a link. That works, but recipients may need to sign in, permissions get forgotten, links expire, and some company firewalls block consumer cloud storage entirely. A small attachment just works: it arrives in the inbox, can be previewed instantly, is searchable, and is archived together with the conversation. For job applications, customer support tickets, insurance claims and school assignments, an attachment is often the only accepted format.
How to email a large video
- Drop the video into the compressor above — it is processed on your device, so even confidential recordings stay private.
- Keep the default 18 MB target, or lower it if your mail system is stricter. If you are sending two clips, give each one half.
- Choose a resolution based on length (see below) and press Compress video.
- Download the MP4 and attach it to your email. Check the size in the attachment bar before you press send.
The settings we recommend
- Under 1 minute: 1080p keeps fine detail such as text on a whiteboard or a screen.
- 1–3 minutes: 720p — the best balance for most phone videos.
- 3–8 minutes: 480p, which still looks clean in an email preview window.
- Longer recordings: trim to the essential part, split into several emails, or use a link.
Talking-head videos, product demos and screen recordings compress extremely well, so you can often use a higher resolution than the table suggests. Footage with lots of motion — sports, drone shots, concerts — needs more bitrate, so step down a resolution if the result looks blocky.
Troubleshooting
- “Attachment too large” even though the file is under the limit: lower the target by 3–5 MB to account for encoding overhead.
- The email bounced later: the recipient's server likely has a lower limit. Ask them, or send a 9 MB version (try our 10 MB preset or even 5 MB).
- The recipient cannot play it: MP4 with H.264 is the most widely supported format. Ask them to download the file rather than relying on the email preview.
- The original is a .mov from an iPhone or Mac: that is fine — the tool converts it to MP4 while compressing. See compress MOV for details.
Private by design
Videos sent by email are often personal or business-sensitive: interviews, contracts walkthroughs, medical or legal evidence. This compressor runs ffmpeg locally in your browser, so the file never touches our servers. There is nothing to delete afterwards because nothing was ever stored.